BV Doshi recalls his experience of working with Le Corbusier—the master architect of Chandigarh, about the city that is unlike any other.

Architect, urban planner, painter, designer, writer—Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, or Le Corbusier as he was known, wore many hats over the course of his storied career. And those who knew him, like I did for several years, had the privilege of not just witnessing a great mind at work, but also, how like an acrobat who performs by taking risks, he balanced his unique ways of living, designing, planning, painting, sculpting, and writing.

A KEEN OBSERVER Planning Chandigarh, the new state capital for Punjab, must have been an unexpected, but welcome opportunity for Le Corbusier to express his understanding of human nature. Here was a chance to think afresh about a habitat where dwelling, working, moving, and cultivating the mind, body and spirit could be integrated.

He saw many things for the first time—the bright blue sky, the relentless sun, the hot winds, the cool moon, and the beauty of tropical nights. His work so far had been a counterpoint to nature; now, he realized he had to have a pact with it. He constantly observed, sketched, and discovered a sense of simultaneous static. Two contrasting objects, the charpoy and the Himalayas, fascinated him: one very temporal and the other eternal.

Birds flying through buildings made him realize the need to circulate hot air in the summer and humid air in the monsoon. He noticed shadows, open ventilation windows, and terraces used to dry clothes and sleep during summer. He examined the narrow pedestrian streets that connected open public spaces, the social interaction within these spaces, and how they gave rise to multiple transactions, which in turn created the fabric of housing clusters.

Le Corbusier believed that architects should always strive to give dignity to the ordinary man. It was as if he was looking at man and God as one; no human being was really ordinary for him. His design for The Capitol Complex is an illustration of this belief. To do so, he devised tools for himself and his staff. He developed the climatic grid, which suggested appropriate orientations, the nature of openings, and types of shading, insulation and cross-ventilation devices. He also consulted French scientists to find suitable applications of advanced technologies to cool hot air through independent or attached architectural elements.

The Secretariat. Photo Courtesy: Stephane Couturier

“To be in the present moment” was his way of being. He never tied himself to just one idea, but orchestrated many. He constantly moved in seemingly contradictory directions. Perhaps porosity was the language he was searching for. When he conceptualized and gave guidelines for the overall master plan of Chandigarh, he took care to provide easily accessible gardens as well as large open spaces.

Accepting realities, he often used the traditional materials and technologies that young Indian architects used. He studied vastu for customs and planning, and noted the meanings of words, rituals, festivals and symbols. Over time, he found a way to emboss some of the symbols while casting concrete walls. Le Corbusier expressed continuous integration, transformation and cyclic growth so that its association with daily urban life was not forgotten. His goal was to invent a new architectural language for India that emphasised cross ventilation, deep-recessed shadows, and the changing nuances of natural light.

Like any creative person, rhythm was inherent to Le Corbusier. Rhythm to him meant proportion, scale and form—whether it was explicit or implicit. Music was terribly important to him and its influence can be seen in his architecture, particularly The Capitol Complex, which is often referred to as Bach’s fugue.

For him, each building played its own note in its own rhythm, and he put these independent rhythms (buildings) together in a relationship that resulted in a very different kind of harmony. This spatial harmony was devised by Le Corbusier keeping in mind the socio-economic interdependence of Indian communities. It eventually culminated in a planned hierarchy that is unique to Chandigarh.

The Open Hand, Chandigarh. Photo Courtesy: FLC/ADAGP, Paris, 2015

Towards the end of his life, Le Corbusier was leaning towards a kind of plurality that would permit many different rhythms at the same time and within the same form. The Open Hand monument, which is a proud symbol of Chandigarh, was designed by him as a reminder to be open to ourselves and to the world. It’s an example of how we should create our buildings, spaces and activities—as a response to our dreams, to remind us about the harmony in the cosmos and its relation to form and scale.